Urgency rears its head as Phils slide

By
Dennis Deitch, Delaware County Daily Times

Monday, June 2, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — There is a chance that the Phillies are about to fall into an abyss. They might have fallen into it already, but in the world of baseball, where a game is just one of 162 shutter snaps, it’s tough to point out the precise moment a bad team takes that plunge.

Let’s just say the situation is dire.

That is a fair assessment of a team that spent its Monday night getting trampled by the Mets, 11-2, losing four out of five games to New York while having its retreaded pitching staff worn out by extra-inning games, its home record reduced to a pathetic 12-19.

“We didn’t play well in this homestand,” Chase Utley said flatly. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is go on the road and try to win some games.”

The Phillies (24-31) are only 6 ½ games behind the division-leading Braves (31-25) in the National League East, believe it or not. It might as well be 26 ½ games. They feel as if they are way, way deeper in the cellar than that.

It could get worse fast. They travel to Washington and Cincinnati this week, a pair of winning teams from last season who are seeking a vulnerable tomato can to beat around and get their 2014 seasons on track.

“I think we have to find a way to win some games,” Carlos Ruiz said. “We have to find three wins in (Washington). We can’t make any excuses. It was embarrassing.

“Sometimes things don’t go your way, so we need to stay strong, come back the next day and play ball. It’s frustrating right now, but if we stay strong, a lot of good things can happen.”

At the moment, the Phillies seem more like a Peter McNeely tripping through the ropes to face Mike Tyson instead of Buster Douglas.

“We’ve showed better baseball before this series,” Ryne Sandberg said — or unconvincingly insisted. “We’ve showed better baseball than we’ve played overall, and I believe that the core group is there.”

Monday was all about the bullpen blowing up after actually performing admirably in the previous three games, all of which went extra innings. Roberto Hernandez had a solid start, as the Mets held a 1-0 lead entering the sixth before it all went sour.

Hernandez gave up a two-run double to David Wright in the sixth to make it 3-0, and after he walked Bobby Abreu, his night was over and Mario Hollands took over. A fielding error by Utley extended the inning, and Wilmer Flores sliced a two-run double to right field to make it 5-0.

The Phils scored in the bottom of the inning on an Utley double, but an aspiring rally in the eighth died when Utley and Ryan Howard were retired with two men on base. In the ninth, it blew up as Jake Diekman struggled to start the inning and the game completely blew up when Phillippe Aumont took the mound. The big, ineffective right-hander was a wreck, falling behind in counts and eventually allowing a mammoth grand slam to Flores, as he set a career high in RBIs.

Ruiz, who went 0-for-4 Monday after going 9-for-17 in the first four games of the series, spoke in a sullen clubhouse of the urgency that the Phils have to display in the next six games if they want to stay afloat.

“We have to start winning some series now,” Ruiz said. “We have to find a way to do that.

“Anything can happen. We know they have good pitching. We have to take advantage of mistakes and try to score some runs for our guys.”

Of course, there’s the possibility that the Phillies are on pace for 90 losses because, well, they are a 90-loss team waiting to happen.

“You know, I’m not a negative person,” Utley said when asked if this simply represents who the Phillies are, “so I’ll say no.”